One Breath
by CatchMeInADream
Summary: My reaction to the series finale and the death of my favorite character, Anya.


Author's Note: Ok, was anyone else really, really upset over Anya's death in Chosen? Because I can tell you that I was! I never, ever expected her to die, and I bet I wasn't the only fan crying and screaming about it either. I wrote this as a kind of closure for the matter (it didn't really help much) and now I'm going to completely disregard her death and any mention of it. In my mind, she lived happily ever after with Xander as her man- slave. And if you try to tell me otherwise, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing really loudly.  
  
By the way, anything that's enclosed in backslashes (like /this/) is meant to be stressed.  
  
*****  
  
One Breath  
  
Anya didn't feel the blade that killed her. There was a sudden pressure in her chest, a quick tightening as the sword sliced through her breast and slashed at her heart, but that was it. She didn't hurt.  
However, she /saw/ everything.  
It was as though she were two places at the same time. She looked down at her own figure, at the sword she had raised above her head, and watched as her body was cut nearly in two.  
She watched with an unexpected swell of pride as Andrew, overcome with rage and sorrow, plowed forward with an inhuman war cry and cut down the Bringer that had killed her. He was dead before her body had even hit the ground. And Andrew kept fighting even after she was gone, after she could no longer feel the body that had lasted over 1,000 years. He kept fighting.  
She drifted. Down, down, to where Giles and Wood were fighting. She tried touching Giles, whom she had come to love like the father she could no longer remember, but it was useless. She was even less corporeal than the First.  
Down some more. Into Hell itself. The fight between the Slayers and their adversaries was awesome to watch. She saw a flash of blonde; Buffy moved like liquid, sliding here, there, leaving only a trail of dust in her wake. And there, Faith executed a perfect back flip over the heads of two vampires. She fought with a frightening intensity, moving like a cat, proud, quick, and sure of herself.  
Anya knew that they were winning.  
She was going up again, and this time it was Dawn she saw, fighting as best she could alongside Xander.  
Xander.  
She watched him fight and knew that Caleb had not hurt him, not one bit. The loss of his eye had not daunted him and he fought like he always did. Tirelessly. Ceaselessly. But most of all, selflessly.  
A great sadness filled what was left of Anya. She didn't want to go. She wanted to live and grow old with Xander. She wanted to die happy and peaceful and loved.  
But she was moving up again, and this time she would not stop. Below her, her friends, her family, her lover would fight and win, but she would not be a part of that victory.  
And then it was dark, and for a long time, Anya knew nothing at all.  
  
*****  
  
When she knew herself once more, Anya was no longer in Sunnydale High School. She didn't know /where/ she was, exactly, but she knew that she was not alone.  
She sat up before she even realized she'd been lying down and found herself in a great white nothingness. She was no longer incorporeal; at least, she didn't think she was. She /looked/ solid enough.  
Anya reached a disbelieving hand up to her chest. She traced a line across the path that Death had taken and found everything the way it should be. Her breasts were whole again, her flesh smooth and clean.  
Slowly, she stood and turned to face the one who'd come to greet her.  
"Hello, Anya," Tara said.  
Anya dipped her head at the witch. "Hi, Tara."  
"Do you know where we are?"  
Anya blinked. Why on earth would she know a thing like that? "No, of course not. This is the first time I've . died, you know."  
She had to force herself to say the word. Her throat constricted around it, trying to force it back down, as if it would not be true if it were not spoken aloud. But Anya knew enough to realize that she was dead and, like it had been with Tara, nothing would bring her back. A tear made its way slowly down her cheek.  
"I want to go home."  
Tara reached a gentle hand out and softly caught the tear with the edge of her finger. It rolled into her palm, and the witch slowly closed her hand around it. When she finally spoke, her voice was pure sorrow.  
"I know it," she whispered. "But . it's impossible. You cannot go back."  
"No, that's bullshit!" Anya screamed. "That's fucking bullshit! Buffy did it-twice! Why not me? Huh, Tara, why not me, or you? Neither of us belongs here!"  
Tara laughed. It was a low, cynical sound that shocked Anya into silence. When the witch looked back at her friend, her eyes were clouded.  
"Because that's the way it is, Anya," she said. "We're stuck here, whether we want to be or not."  
"But . /why/?" Anya couldn't help the pleading whine that crept into her voice. She was desperate; she knew that she couldn't go back yet she wanted to try. Why couldn't she try?  
"Because we were wild cards, that's why," Tara tried to explain, "This wasn't our destiny, yet it happened and now we have to deal with it. It could be worse, Anya, it really could. We could be in Hell."  
"But we're not in Heaven, either."  
"Come with me and I'll take you there."  
The woman once known as Aud, born over 1,000 mortal years ago, who had killed and maimed and tortured, who became a woman again, who had loved and lost and loved again, recoiled.  
"I can go to Heaven?" she asked, shocked. "Me? Really?"  
Tara shrugged. "If you choose."  
"But . why?" There was that word again.  
"Because you're a good person. You always have been. You died protecting someone weaker than you. You /are/ worthy."  
She had to admit the offer was tempting. If she couldn't live, if she couldn't return to Xander, she could at least . wait for him someplace nice. She took a tentative step toward the witch.  
But then she gasped, placing a hand on her chest where the blade had sliced her heart right in two and for a moment, she could feel the pain that she should have felt then. She staggered.  
"No," she ground out through clenched teeth. "I have to know . how it ends."  
Tara hesitated. But finally, she nodded. She waved the hand that had caught Anya's tear; the salty drop slid from the witch's palm and splashed to the floor. The white around it rippled and spread outward, engulfing the space around it. Soon, it was Sunnydale they saw all around them. Anya gasped.  
It was gone. Completely, utterly gone. The Hellmouth had collapsed upon itself and taken the whole town with it. And in that hole, Anya knew, was her own body. Her body, and Tara's, and Joyce's, and Spike's ashes. All down there.  
And just outside city limits, there was a bus. The ex-demon had to giggle at that it was so absurd. Inside the bus were most of the potential - no, the Slayers. Standing outside of it, looking into the crater where once had stood a town, was Buffy and Dawn, Giles, Faith, Willow, Kennedy, Andrew and . Xander.  
Tears slipped silently down Anya's face. She stepped closer to the image of Xander, followed him as he separated himself slightly from his friends. She could see the moisture in his eye. He swiped quickly at it.  
"I miss you already, Ahn."  
Anya choked on her sob. She reached a tentative hand out and stroked with the tips of her fingers Xander's face. For a brief second, he looked right at her, as if he saw her.  
"I love you," she whispered.  
And then the moment of seeming-recognition was gone, and he brushed the place on his cheek where Anya had just touched. She smiled tremulously; he'd felt her caress, if only as a breeze. And that was all she needed.  
Slowly, she turned back to Tara. The expanse they were in flickered and became white again. Tara offered her arm.  
Anya glanced briefly over her shoulder, as if hoping for one last chance to return to the living, then resolutely linked her arm with Tara's. She was dead; she knew it, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was dead and the others were alive, and they had to keep living. She could not begrudge them that. And so she followed Tara into Heaven, promising to herself, and to Xander, that she would wait as long as it took for him to join her.  
After all, in Heaven, a lifetime might pass as quickly as a breath. 


End file.
